Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Ok, quick rant about the above-linked article in the New York Times, which is titled "Anti-Love Drug May Be Ticket to Bliss" and which chronicles a study of prairie voles to try to understand human pair bonding. In it researchers and the reporter both equate love and sexual neurochemistry:

"reducing love to its component parts helps us to understand human sexuality, and may lead to drugs that enhance or diminish our love for another, says Larry J. Young."

Why prairie voles? 'Cuz:

"These mouselike creatures are among the small minority of mammals — less than 5 percent — who share humans’ propensity for monogamy."

I'd love to see the studies classifying humans as a monogamous species. "Love", for the purposes of this study, apparently means "monogamy," and is hence a squarely sexual phenomenon. Love is just the emotional/neurochemicalrollercoaster which enforces (ha!) monogamy in humans:

"'Some of our sexuality has evolved to stimulate that same oxytocin system to create female-male bonds,' Dr. Young said, noting that sexual foreplay and intercourse stimulate the same parts of a woman’s body that are involved in giving birth and nursing. This hormonal hypothesis, which is by no means proven fact, would help explain a couple of differences between humans and less monogamous mammals: females’ desire to have sex even when they are not fertile, and males’ erotic fascination with breasts. More frequent sex and more attention to breasts, Dr. Young said, could help build long-term bonds through a 'cocktail of ancient neuropeptides,” like the oxytocin released during foreplay or orgasm.'"

"Unproven" is the key here, but this speculation is still the crux of of the NYT's article.

There's something in here that should disturb even you die-hard romantics out there, namely the subtle implication that love is outdated. According to this article (and, apparently, the assumptions of mainstream science), the intense emotions that we feel are just instinctual leftovers from a less civilized age. The article goes on to talk about the inappropriateness of cupid'soxytocin arrow hitting during a business meeting, and speculates about how useful it would be to have a "vaccine" that got rid of the emotional mess alltogether.

All too often I see love discussed in terms of loose neurochemistry and even looser evolutionary psychology. The idea seems to be that the complicated emotions that we feel for one another only make sense in contexts outside of our understanding- the complicated mathematics of hormone interaction and Bedrock, respectively. I'm not willing to give up so easily. Love isn't just a chemical burden passed down to us from homo erectus, it's something that is profoundly shaped and reshaped by cultures across geography and time.

Love is around because it makes our lives better and because it makes our society tick. Understanding the neurochemistry of love might help big pharma's bottom line, but ultimately it won't help us understand how the things that we feel and the relationships that we have can genuinely improve our lives. To do that, we have to think about love in the context that where we feel it. Neurochemistry won't help us unless we want to start interacting with romance through drugs. Evolutionary psychology won't help us unless we want to hit on australopithecus. But if we can begin to seriously talk about, study, and understand the structure of relationships then we may just get somewhere.